Learning about internet business models that work is essential for doing business online. Some of the internet business start-ups failed because their business models didn’t work and they were unable to generate enough revenues.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re just starting out or have already in operation for some time, you’ll want to check your business model regularly. It includes reviewing how the current model generates sales and spotting opportunities for implementing a better revenue model.
If you’re looking for the right business model for your business, learn about the three business models. Take a look at how they can help create a low risk and profitable online business using your spare time, working from home.
3 Internet Business Models
There are three major internet business models that you can build a business around:
1. Sell a physical or digital good – There are many ways to goods. Some businesses create a mini site with just a few pages and then direct paid traffic from search engines or social media to their sales page.
Some others make significant content pages to get free search engine traffic and then direct the visitors to their sales page.
Both of the sellers may handle all the sales processes by themselves, or take orders from their sites and outsource the order fulfillment to a dropship business partner.
2. Sell a service – Offering a service is another way to do business online, if you have expertise in a certain field. Even if your service can only be delivered offline you can still reach a much wider audience. All you need to do is to differentiate your service.
For example, you can build an informative and entertaining website with an emphasis on the uniqueness of your service offerings. Or may be offering a contract service to handle your client’s project as a whole and not as separated tasks. But the idea is to make the clients hire you and not your competition.
3. Market affiliate programs – This model may look easier than the other two models. Primarily you don’t need to provide a product or a service to sell. But as a reseller of other people’s product you still have to market it. And one way to do this is to build a website that caters a specific niche market.
As an internet affiliate business person you’ll have to build an expertise on that particular niche. Once you gain trust from your visitors you can recommend them to your affiliated merchants. If you can reach this stage, you’ll be able to generate revenues from different sources.
Internet Business Models for Your Small Business
Now it’s time to evaluate your options.
Have a look at your core strengths and how far you want to go in your business.
For example, you have an offline business that sell goods and you want to get the business online. What you’re actually doing is open a new sales outlet with your web presence, to reach online prospects.
But it can go further than that. You can add more product lines to your current items. If you source the goods from wholesalers, find out whether they offer fulfillment services. Or if you don’t want the hassles of order handling and shipping, just have a drop shipping company to do it for you.
Say you offer a professional or a consumer service covering your local area.
Do you prefer to provide a service to local market or online audience? The beauty of this model is that your income is not limited by your time and your ability to deliver the service.
You can sell digital goods to visitors from different localities. It may also give you additional online advertising revenue through relevant affiliate programs and contextual ads.
Overall, there are at least three internet business models to create multiple streams of online revenue. If you’re interested in learning other variation of internet business models, you can do it here.
But, it doesn’t matter which business model you choose, make sure you go with a niche that you know and a subject that you love. These are keys for building close relationship with customers and securing long-term profitability for your business.